<h2><SPAN name="chap33"></SPAN>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
<p>We waited all day for Wolf Larsen to come ashore. It was an intolerable period
of anxiety. Each moment one or the other of us cast expectant glances toward
the <i>Ghost</i>. But he did not come. He did not even appear on deck.</p>
<p>“Perhaps it is his headache,” I said. “I left him lying on
the poop. He may lie there all night. I think I’ll go and see.”</p>
<p>Maud looked entreaty at me.</p>
<p>“It is all right,” I assured her. “I shall take the
revolvers. You know I collected every weapon on board.”</p>
<p>“But there are his arms, his hands, his terrible, terrible hands!”
she objected. And then she cried, “Oh, Humphrey, I am afraid of him!
Don’t go—please don’t go!”</p>
<p>She rested her hand appealingly on mine, and sent my pulse fluttering. My heart
was surely in my eyes for a moment. The dear and lovely woman! And she was so
much the woman, clinging and appealing, sunshine and dew to my manhood, rooting
it deeper and sending through it the sap of a new strength. I was for putting
my arm around her, as when in the midst of the seal herd; but I considered, and
refrained.</p>
<p>“I shall not take any risks,” I said. “I’ll merely peep
over the bow and see.”</p>
<p>She pressed my hand earnestly and let me go. But the space on deck where I had
left him lying was vacant. He had evidently gone below. That night we stood
alternate watches, one of us sleeping at a time; for there was no telling what
Wolf Larsen might do. He was certainly capable of anything.</p>
<p>The next day we waited, and the next, and still he made no sign.</p>
<p>“These headaches of his, these attacks,” Maud said, on the
afternoon of the fourth day; “Perhaps he is ill, very ill. He may be
dead.”</p>
<p>“Or dying,” was her afterthought when she had waited some time for
me to speak.</p>
<p>“Better so,” I answered.</p>
<p>“But think, Humphrey, a fellow-creature in his last lonely hour.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps,” I suggested.</p>
<p>“Yes, even perhaps,” she acknowledged. “But we do not know.
It would be terrible if he were. I could never forgive myself. We must do
something.”</p>
<p>“Perhaps,” I suggested again.</p>
<p>I waited, smiling inwardly at the woman of her which compelled a solicitude for
Wolf Larsen, of all creatures. Where was her solicitude for me, I
thought,—for me whom she had been afraid to have merely peep aboard?</p>
<p>She was too subtle not to follow the trend of my silence. And she was as direct
as she was subtle.</p>
<p>“You must go aboard, Humphrey, and find out,” she said. “And
if you want to laugh at me, you have my consent and forgiveness.”</p>
<p>I arose obediently and went down the beach.</p>
<p>“Do be careful,” she called after me.</p>
<p>I waved my arm from the forecastle head and dropped down to the deck. Aft I
walked to the cabin companion, where I contented myself with hailing below.
Wolf Larsen answered, and as he started to ascend the stairs I cocked my
revolver. I displayed it openly during our conversation, but he took no notice
of it. He appeared the same, physically, as when last I saw him, but he was
gloomy and silent. In fact, the few words we spoke could hardly be called a
conversation. I did not inquire why he had not been ashore, nor did he ask why
I had not come aboard. His head was all right again, he said, and so, without
further parley, I left him.</p>
<p>Maud received my report with obvious relief, and the sight of smoke which later
rose in the galley put her in a more cheerful mood. The next day, and the next,
we saw the galley smoke rising, and sometimes we caught glimpses of him on the
poop. But that was all. He made no attempt to come ashore. This we knew, for we
still maintained our night-watches. We were waiting for him to do something, to
show his hand, so to say, and his inaction puzzled and worried us.</p>
<p>A week of this passed by. We had no other interest than Wolf Larsen, and his
presence weighed us down with an apprehension which prevented us from doing any
of the little things we had planned.</p>
<p>But at the end of the week the smoke ceased rising from the galley, and he no
longer showed himself on the poop. I could see Maud’s solicitude again
growing, though she timidly—and even proudly, I think—forbore a
repetition of her request. After all, what censure could be put upon her? She
was divinely altruistic, and she was a woman. Besides, I was myself aware of
hurt at thought of this man whom I had tried to kill, dying alone with his
fellow-creatures so near. He was right. The code of my group was stronger than
I. The fact that he had hands, feet, and a body shaped somewhat like mine,
constituted a claim which I could not ignore.</p>
<p>So I did not wait a second time for Maud to send me. I discovered that we stood
in need of condensed milk and marmalade, and announced that I was going aboard.
I could see that she wavered. She even went so far as to murmur that they were
non-essentials and that my trip after them might be inexpedient. And as she had
followed the trend of my silence, she now followed the trend of my speech, and
she knew that I was going aboard, not because of condensed milk and marmalade,
but because of her and of her anxiety, which she knew she had failed to hide.</p>
<p>I took off my shoes when I gained the forecastle head, and went noiselessly aft
in my stocking feet. Nor did I call this time from the top of the
companion-way. Cautiously descending, I found the cabin deserted. The door to
his state-room was closed. At first I thought of knocking, then I remembered my
ostensible errand and resolved to carry it out. Carefully avoiding noise, I
lifted the trap-door in the floor and set it to one side. The slop-chest, as
well as the provisions, was stored in the lazarette, and I took advantage of
the opportunity to lay in a stock of underclothing.</p>
<p>As I emerged from the lazarette I heard sounds in Wolf Larsen’s
state-room. I crouched and listened. The door-knob rattled. Furtively,
instinctively, I slunk back behind the table and drew and cocked my revolver.
The door swung open and he came forth. Never had I seen so profound a despair
as that which I saw on his face,—the face of Wolf Larsen the fighter, the
strong man, the indomitable one. For all the world like a woman wringing her
hands, he raised his clenched fists and groaned. One fist unclosed, and the
open palm swept across his eyes as though brushing away cobwebs.</p>
<p>“God! God!” he groaned, and the clenched fists were raised again to
the infinite despair with which his throat vibrated.</p>
<p>It was horrible. I was trembling all over, and I could feel the shivers running
up and down my spine and the sweat standing out on my forehead. Surely there
can be little in this world more awful than the spectacle of a strong man in
the moment when he is utterly weak and broken.</p>
<p>But Wolf Larsen regained control of himself by an exertion of his remarkable
will. And it was exertion. His whole frame shook with the struggle. He
resembled a man on the verge of a fit. His face strove to compose itself,
writhing and twisting in the effort till he broke down again. Once more the
clenched fists went upward and he groaned. He caught his breath once or twice
and sobbed. Then he was successful. I could have thought him the old Wolf
Larsen, and yet there was in his movements a vague suggestion of weakness and
indecision. He started for the companion-way, and stepped forward quite as I
had been accustomed to see him do; and yet again, in his very walk, there
seemed that suggestion of weakness and indecision.</p>
<p>I was now concerned with fear for myself. The open trap lay directly in his
path, and his discovery of it would lead instantly to his discovery of me. I
was angry with myself for being caught in so cowardly a position, crouching on
the floor. There was yet time. I rose swiftly to my feet, and, I know, quite
unconsciously assumed a defiant attitude. He took no notice of me. Nor did he
notice the open trap. Before I could grasp the situation, or act, he had walked
right into the trap. One foot was descending into the opening, while the other
foot was just on the verge of beginning the uplift. But when the descending
foot missed the solid flooring and felt vacancy beneath, it was the old Wolf
Larsen and the tiger muscles that made the falling body spring across the
opening, even as it fell, so that he struck on his chest and stomach, with arms
outstretched, on the floor of the opposite side. The next instant he had drawn
up his legs and rolled clear. But he rolled into my marmalade and underclothes
and against the trap-door.</p>
<p>The expression on his face was one of complete comprehension. But before I
could guess what he had comprehended, he had dropped the trap-door into place,
closing the lazarette. Then I understood. He thought he had me inside. Also, he
was blind, blind as a bat. I watched him, breathing carefully so that he should
not hear me. He stepped quickly to his state-room. I saw his hand miss the
door-knob by an inch, quickly fumble for it, and find it. This was my chance. I
tiptoed across the cabin and to the top of the stairs. He came back, dragging a
heavy sea-chest, which he deposited on top of the trap. Not content with this
he fetched a second chest and placed it on top of the first. Then he gathered
up the marmalade and underclothes and put them on the table. When he started up
the companion-way, I retreated, silently rolling over on top of the cabin.</p>
<p>He shoved the slide part way back and rested his arms on it, his body still in
the companion-way. His attitude was of one looking forward the length of the
schooner, or staring, rather, for his eyes were fixed and unblinking. I was
only five feet away and directly in what should have been his line of vision.
It was uncanny. I felt myself a ghost, what of my invisibility. I waved my hand
back and forth, of course without effect; but when the moving shadow fell
across his face I saw at once that he was susceptible to the impression. His
face became more expectant and tense as he tried to analyze and identify the
impression. He knew that he had responded to something from without, that his
sensibility had been touched by a changing something in his environment; but
what it was he could not discover. I ceased waving my hand, so that the shadow
remained stationary. He slowly moved his head back and forth under it and
turned from side to side, now in the sunshine, now in the shade, feeling the
shadow, as it were, testing it by sensation.</p>
<p>I, too, was busy, trying to reason out how he was aware of the existence of so
intangible a thing as a shadow. If it were his eyeballs only that were
affected, or if his optic nerve were not wholly destroyed, the explanation was
simple. If otherwise, then the only conclusion I could reach was that the
sensitive skin recognized the difference of temperature between shade and
sunshine. Or, perhaps,—who can tell?—it was that fabled sixth sense
which conveyed to him the loom and feel of an object close at hand.</p>
<p>Giving over his attempt to determine the shadow, he stepped on deck and started
forward, walking with a swiftness and confidence which surprised me. And still
there was that hint of the feebleness of the blind in his walk. I knew it now
for what it was.</p>
<p>To my amused chagrin, he discovered my shoes on the forecastle head and brought
them back with him into the galley. I watched him build the fire and set about
cooking food for himself; then I stole into the cabin for my marmalade and
underclothes, slipped back past the galley, and climbed down to the beach to
deliver my barefoot report.</p>
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